Page 125 - Ray Dalio - Principles

I mandated a policy not to review unsolicited requests so our
staff has the time to sort through the areas we want to be
focused on. We are continuously improving all our principles

and policies, and I dream about building decision-making
algorithms for our philanthropic efforts, though that’s beyond
my reach at the moment.

As you might have guessed, we also seek advice from the
most experienced and respected people possible. Bill Gates
and the people we met through our participation in his,
Melinda Gates’s, and Warren Buffett’s Giving Pledge have

been enlightening. Others such as Muhammad Yunus, Paul
Jones, Jeff Skoll, the Omidyar folks, and the people at TED
have been very helpful. The most important thing we’ve
learned is that there’s no one right way to do philanthropy,
though there are plenty of wrong ways.

Giving away the money that I acquired during my lifetime
—and doing that well—has been a joy, a challenge, and the

appropriate thing to do at this stage in my life.

BRIDGEWATER TURNS FORTY

In June 2015, Bridgewater marked its fortieth anniversary, an
amazing milestone we celebrated by throwing a big party. We
had a lot to celebrate, since by most measures no firm in our
13
industry had been as successful. Key people who had been a
part of our journey from its outset and throughout our forty
years got up to speak. Each of them described the evolution of

the company through their eyes—how some things had
changed over the years while others had stayed the same, most
importantly, our culture of striving for excellence in work and
excellence in relationships by being radically truthful and
radically transparent with each other. They recounted how we
uniquely and repeatedly tried new things, failed, learned from
our failures, improved, and tried again, doing that over and

over in an upward spiral. When it was my turn to speak, I
wanted to convey what I had always tried to give the people at
Bridgewater, and what I wanted them to have in the future
without me: